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Dalmia, Vasudha (Hg.): Hindi Modernism. Rethinking Agyeya and His Times. Proceedings of the Berkeley Sym- posium February 11–13, 2011. Berkeley: Center for South Asia Studies, University of California 2012. 214 S. 8°. Lw. ISBN 978-0-944613-26-9.

Besprochen von Nicola Pozza: Lausanne, E-Mail: [email protected]

DOI 10.1515/olzg-2016-0012

This book edited by Vasudha Dalmia belongs to the various publications and events marking Agyeya’s (Ajñeya’s) birth centenary in 2011. Saccidānand Hīrānand Vātsyāyan ‘Ajñeya’ (1911–1987) counts among the most influential writers of Hindi literature, and remains to date one of the major authors of Indian literatures; poet, fiction writer, essayist and editor, he has left his mark on every literary field he explored. However, his fame has not yet crossed the borders of South Asia, except for within the little aca- demic circle of Hindi scholars, teachers and students. Therefore, this volume, consisting of the proceedings of a commemorative symposium held in Berkeley from Feb- ruary 11 to 13, 2011, represents a valuable contribution in its own right. The location of the symposium and the per- sonality of the editor add weight to the project: Berkeley

Brought to you by | Bibliotheque Universitaire de Lausanne Authenticated | [email protected] Download Date | 4/22/16 1:57 PM Südasien 65 was one of the two universities (with Heidelberg in poets, in mutually opposite pairs, the reality is that “there Germany) where Agyeya taught and played an important has always been a fellowship between writers … [and that] role in developing Hindi literature in the Western aca- the fellowship [between the mentioned three] is an abso- demic world, while Vasudha Dalmia, an eminent scholar lutely simple reality and not the result of some ideological and figure in the field of South Asian and Hindi studies, affirmation belonging to the realm of criticism” (p. 9). had been close to him at various points throughout his The second essay, also belonging to the first section, life. To pay homage to the contribution Agyeya made in is by the professor and essayist Alok Rai: “Modernism – establishing Hindi instruction in the Western academic Reading Pratik through Agyeya: Reading Agyeya through world, the Berkeley symposium and its proceedings are Pratik” (pp. 17–28). Its title puts it clearly enough: this an attempt “to remember and critically reevaluate Agyeya contribution is focused on the journal Pratīk (“Symbol”), in his centenary year” (p. 5). The general aim of the edited inter alios by Agyeya and published somewhere volume is explicitly stated by Dalmia in her introduction (no specific dates were given in the journal) between to the book: “to place him [i. e. Agyeya] in his times as summer 1947 and spring 1949 (or 1950). After an initial emerging out of his network of poets, aestheticians, nov- discussion on the journal itself, the author raises the elists, and short-story writers, to set aside the later polar- question central to this publication, of “modernism”, by ities of progressive and experimentalist and consider him asking “what this recognition of plurality [in reference to alongside his contemporaries: Jainendra, Muktibodh and the ‘Multiple’ Modernities issue of Daedalus] might mean others” (p. 6). for our understanding of modernity and modernism(s) in The very idea of a “network of poets” is at the core the heartland of Hindi – and specifically, in the case of of the contribution by Ashok Vajpeyi, the eminent Hindi Agyeya and Pratik” (p. 26). Unfortunately for the reader, poet, critic and editor. This article is the first of the eleven this question and its clarification in the context of “Hindi papers published here and divided into four parts: “Pro- modernism” remains unanswered – here and more gener- logue, PrastāvꞋnā”; “Prose, Gadya”; “Poetry, Kavitā”; ally in the book. and “Pedagogy, Adhyayan-adhyāpan”. Three articles The second section opens with another Hindi paper: have been kept in the original Hindi of their presentation Uday Prakash’s “Ajñeya – apꞋvarjan ke kārāgār” (“Agyeya – during the symposium – and have no English versions, Prisons of Exclusion”, pp. 30–40). The questions dealt because the editor “did not want the original tone to be with here by the renowned Hindi writer focus on the flattened, to get lost in translation” (p. 7). While the idea “vision” that appears in the first lines of Agyeya’s introduc- of keeping the original language is valuable and praise- tion (bhūmikā) to his first novel Śekhar: ek jīvꞋnī. Puzzled worthy, the absence of English translations contradicts, at by the fact that Agyeya used the roman script for this least partly, the expressed aim of making Agyeya “better word, Uday Prakash explores the novel in biographical known in the non-Hindi literary world as a major Indian and philosophical terms, in order to find out the nature modernist” (p. 1), and might limit the scope of the poten- of this “vision” and also in which time and place that tial readership of this book. vision occurred. Mostly based on an analysis of the As mentioned, Ashok Vajpeyi opens the volume with novel and on interviews Agyeya later gave on it, the con- his essay entitled “SāhꞋcarya kī bṛhattrayī” (“The Great tributor stresses both the fact that what matters here is Triad of Fellowship”, pp. 9–16), in which the focus is not the writer’s own experience – and not only his charac- limited to Agyeya alone but to the three poets (the “triad” ter Śekhar’s – and the link between the Buddha’s place of the title) – namely Agyeya, Muktibodh, and Shamsher of death (or parinirvāṇ) and Agyeya’s birth place, both (ŚamꞋśer) – whose contribution to the rise and develop- Kushinagar. ment of the nayī kavitā has been, according to the author, This novel is also at the centre of the next contribu- of the highest importance through their own practice of tion. In “The Mark of the Political in Shekhar Ek Jivani” poetry and critical reflexion (p. 11). In brief, Vajpeyi con- (pp. 41–58), Simona Sawhney wonders why, in the context siders them all to be equally essential “for understand- of the revolutionary movements of pre-independence ing the reality of our time and society” (p. 16), and suc- India, “the connection between [Śekhar’s inner] life and cessively considers the ways in which they have dealt its historical context is not more substantively explored” with topics such as poetry, society or communication, by (p. 46). One of her conclusions, after discussing the novel systematically comparing their respective, and distinct, along three topics, viz. gender, caste and violence, is that views and commitment to these topics. Behind this com- it may be more fruitful to read it “as part of a process of parison is the idea that despite the habit that has spread thinking” (p. 56) rather than as a text engaged with the in recent decades of looking at authors, and especially political debates and situation of the times.

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Nikhil Govind, through his contribution entitled saptak (1943) besides Agyeya himself, its “prominent “What is Modernism in the Hindi Novel?” (pp. 59–76), editor” (p. 125). In brief, the author wants “to present wishes to talk about “the question in Hindi of the genre and discuss the multilayered interrelations within the Tār of self-narrativization / autobiography” (p. 59), using for Saptak group of authors and also look into the role of the his purpose Jainendra Kumar’s TyāgꞋpatr and Agyeya’s critics” (p. 126). Thus, one of the great merits of Lotz’s con- Śekhar. Unfortunately, no explanation is provided in the tribution is that it questions the real role Agyeya played end either on the central concept constituting the title or in the formation and the development of the prayogꞋvād on the topic of self-narrativisation. movement by recalling to our mind the critical comments It is Agyeya’s second novel which becomes the focus the other poets made, especially in the second edition of of interest in Vasudha Dalmia’s essay “City, Civilization, Tār saptak (p. 128), and by analysing, or even deconstruct- and Nature: Agyeya’s Nadī ke Dvīp” (pp. 77–102). While ing, Agyeya’s editorial prefaces to the first and second the “new gender equation” in Nadī ke dvīp has been editions (pp. 129f.). Lotz offers us a valuable paper with re­cognised long since, the author prefers to stress here regard both to the history of Hindi literature and Agyeya’s the less acknowledged “novel’s near absolute rejection actual role in it. of city-life and its comforts” (p. 77) and speaks of a “new In “Two Models of Modernist Aesthetics in Hindi Criti- celebration of nature”, beyond the romanticist picture of cism” (pp. 147–159), Greg Goulding discusses two attempts chāyāvād poetry. Dalmia focuses on Rekhā’s and Bhuvan’s in modern Hindi criticism to deal with, and develop, “new frames of reference – i. e. “the experience of the self as an models of aesthetics and modernism” (p. 159). The author island in the stream of life” for Rekhā, and “‘science’ as compares Agyeya’s collection of essays on literature an ethical and humanitarian enterprise” for Bhuvan – in Triśaṅku (1945) with Muktibodh’s compilation of news- order to explore the two main protagonists’ relationship paper columns Ek sāhityik kī ḍāyꞋrī (1964), and highlights “with themselves and each other as they seek to create some differences between them, for instance that in Agy- and find space within these frames” (p. 78). Besides the eya’s case “the work of art is in some way independent relevant web of topics that Dalmia interweaves in her from the artist”, while in Muktibodh’s case “a dynamic contribution, her main focus on Rekhā’s frame of refer- process within the artist is essential for the creation of the ences and points of view gives to the novel a perspective work of art” (pp. 158f.). that is, if not completely original, at least unconventional Concluding this section on poetry is the essay “Tār and wholly justified. Saptak Poetry & The Polish Avant-Garde: Observations The last chapter of this section deals with four short on the Universality of Artistic Thought” (pp. 160–192) by stories by Agyeya which all contain in their title the word Renata Czekalska. The main purpose of her paper is to kahānī (“story”) and “share certain features in structure “point out certain similarities in historical as well as liter- and tone” (p. 104) as well as a recurrent concern for satya ary experiences” of the poets of both (pp. 160f.). In order (seen here as hidden truth). A fifth story is added at the end to do so, she focuses on four themes, which constitute of the essay as another typical example of Agyeya’s art. In the four parts of her paper: (1) the idea of free verse and this contribution “The Short Story as an aide à penser. the question of imagination; (2) common traits in the per- Ajñeya’s stories” (pp. 103–123), Francesca Orsini develops ception of the world, these being divided into four cat­ a convincing analysis of these stories. Her paper rightly fits egories according to the poets’ view and attitude towards into the frame of a commemorative volume as it offers an the world, independence, war and revolution, progress impulse to read the potentially dissuasive stories and style and socialism; (3) the metaphor of a bomb as an example of Agyeya by reminding us: “It is only if the reader is ready of common treatment of matters related to technological to invest in them [i. e. niṣṭhā (reverence) and viśvās (trust)] progress; and (4) the function of art in society. One of the that these self-reflexive, oblique and indeterminate stories main conclusions of this rich work of comparison is that ‘work’ and reveal their hidden truths”(p. 116). Moreover, it beyond the unavoidable differences existing between the is one of the few articles of the volume to explicitly deal Hindi and the Polish poets “the greatest similarity … was with the concept of “modernism” (p. 115). the faith in the educational influence which poetry can Opening the section dedicated to poetry, Barbara have on social reality, on the personality of a human Lotz’s contribution “Rāhoṃ ke anveṣī: the Editor of the being” (p. 186). Saptak-Anthologies and His Poets” (pp. 125–146) aims The last section of this volume contains only one at examining several important questions regarding the essay, the third in Hindi: “Jainendra aur ajñeya par frăyꞋḍ artistic contribution and literary commitment of the six kā prakṣep” (The Projection of Freud on Jainendra and poets published in the groundbreaking anthology Tār Agyeya”, pp. 194–214) by Sanjeev Kumar. This detailed

Brought to you by | Bibliotheque Universitaire de Lausanne Authenticated | [email protected] Download Date | 4/22/16 1:57 PM Südasien 67 and dense study deals with two among the main “psy- chological novels” (manovaijñānik upanyās) of Hindi literature: Agyeya’s Śekhar: ek jīvꞋnī (1941, 1943) and Jainendra’s Sunītā (1935). The author positions himself against the commonly shared view in academic circles and literary histories that this kind of Hindi fiction has been heavily influenced by the theories of Freud, and criticises what he sees as artificial and baseless general- isations perpetuated through an auto-referential process, and resulting from the lack of source reading (pp. 212f.). To conclude, this book dedicated to Agyeya contains many articles that deserve a careful reading and bring a good quantity of valuable information, even for the spe- cialists of the field, on the eminent author as well as on some of his contemporaries. Its main merit is to contribute in an important way to the still too rare studies on Agyeya available in Western languages by offering original and insightful essays. A general remark, however, must be made regard- ing the editing of the volume. The lack of coherency and rigour with regard to the layout, use of translation with quotations and bibliographical references of the articles throughout the volume works strongly against the quality of the papers. There is almost no contribution without at least a few errors regarding the bibliographical references (wrong date, wrong spelling, lack of reference, etc.). Fur- thermore, abstracts both in Hindi and English would have been much more helpful, especially for readers not fluent in Hindi. Notwithstanding these remarks, this volume brings a valuable contribution to the studies on Agyeya and modern Hindi literature.

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